


Evening Prayers

by matrixrefugee



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: A quiet moment at the end of the day...





	Evening Prayers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [any, any, saying their prayers at night](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/222894.html?thread=9154990#cmt9154990). Featuring Father Brown.

Alone after a long day: Mrs. McCarthy had gone home for the night, taking her chatter with her; he had made his last call to an aging parishoner. Now he had his rooms in the rectory to himself, or as much to himself when any space and all the furniture within it belonged to God and he only rented it.

He ran a bath for himself, fetching his pyjamas from under his pillow while the water ran. Warm water in a porcelain tub, clean soap, fresh towel that Mrs. McCarthy had laid out earlier: simple things that lifted ones heart and senses after a long day.

Getting out, toweling off, dressing in pyjamas, then padding back to his room: the bookshelves at arm's reach in his small room, the narrow but comfortable bed. Fetching his breviary, he offered Matins, the late evening portion of the Liturgy of the Hours, prayers he had offered dozens of time, the Psalms and texts like familiar paintings that still had yet to reveal all their details.

Once he had finished praying his Office, he set the thick, well-worn book aside on the nightstand, then knelt down beside the bed, elbows on the mattress, praying as he had since a boy at his mother's knee, simple prayers for friends and enemies and loved ones, finding their way in the here or in the hereafter, light for some, ease of burdens for others, understanding for those who refused it to their fellow man. And lastly, he prayed for his own light and understanding, for the times when he had let himself stray into the shadow of sin and when he had himself failed to understand his fellow man.

Only then did he take off his spectacles, folding them up and setting them atop his breviary, then he turned down the covers of his bed, before climbing into bed, pulling the covers to his chin and closing his eyes. A few quiet Hail Marys in his mind helped him to settle down or to clear his head of the last shreds of the day's cares, and he would drift off in peace....


End file.
